A Four Letter Word
by RoseFrederick
Summary: It's just like every other time Max has gone on a tear about Alec, until it ends with a stranger uttering the ominous words, "Wish Granted."


**A Four Letter Word**

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A/N: AU diverging between Love Among the Runes and Freak Nation. M/A with mention of AB/LC and uncomplimentary description of M/LC. I have rarely written ship fic on my own initiative because I don't figure I have much of anything new to add that hasn't already been done better, but the end of this just didn't seem complete without crossing that line. So I did.

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It had been an aggravatingly long day for Max, starting with the night before. She'd been out late on a mission for some Eyes Only crusade of Logan's which had ultimately turned out to be a bust after wasting her whole night. As a consequence of her barely returning home before dawn, she had not gotten even the minimal amount of sleep her super charged system needed to get to work anything close to on time. Staying in bed sluggishly resistant to getting up had meant making her way into Jam Pony several hours late, and Normal had been immediately on her case, bip bip bipping away. That wasn't exactly unusual, but since they were apparently shorthanded again, he'd insisted she deliver about twice as many packages as normal. Of course, while he was all over her to get to work with an armful of packages every time she rode her way back into the dispatch center, he never said a single word about _Alec_ lounging around at the desk not doing a thing. No, not Normal's golden boy, can't expect _him_ to do any work. Max isn't even sure the ass delivered a single package all day, because he was there, yapping away into Normal's adoring ear every single time she wheeled in and out.

That wasn't even all there was to it. One of her deliveries was out all afternoon, so she kept having to run back by the place, to ultimately get no tip from the stingy recipient once he did finally get home. Along the way she nearly got run down by inconsiderate drivers – twice. She ended up with skinned knees and palms from the second incident, which was only a minor annoyance for a transgenic but certainly didn't help her mood any. Worse, the day alternated between hopelessly dreary and unpredictable downpours – the latter always seeming to start up the second she headed out on a run. On top of that, Logan was blowing up her pager to such a degree she was sure there was a transgenic emergency somewhere – but when she finally found a working payphone it turned out he was just checking in to complain she hadn't ever gotten back to him about his mission the night before. By the time she'd been forced by Normal into taking the last delivery of the day halfway across the city just minutes before closing – after being told Alec couldn't do it since he'd asked off early because he had plans – she was steaming mad.

Slightly worried about what kind of trouble Alec's plans would have him neck deep and needing to be bailed out of, and just wanting to relax and forget about it all for a while, she headed to Crash. Only to come down the stairs into the comforting surroundings and through the crowd be able to see Alec ensconced at the bar. Max really, really wants to walk right over there and kick his ass. The tiny twinge of relief she feels that he's not out somewhere involved in some scheme or other that will get his stupid ass shot or caught by White again only reinforces the urge.

Luckily for Alec, Original Cindy spots her and waves Max over before her impulse to go over there gets the better of her. In a low cut and backless blue top, Cindy has a high top near the pool tables staked out for them and already has a pitcher waiting. As Max walks over, she sees Sketchy playing someone at the nearest table. For the first time the whole day it feels like something is actually going right. It allows Max to relax for just a little while, letting her friend's latest tales of Jam Pony employee drama wash over her. Unfortunately, Cindy's stories about their coworkers inevitably include the bane of her existence. She's not even really sure what exactly Cindy says about him, because just the mention of Alec's name pushes her irritation back into overdrive all over again.

The way Max figures it, there's no reason she should have to keep suffering for his existence without sharing the pain a little with Alec. Max turns toward the bar, but sees that Alec's no longer sitting there. She shifts again to see if he's moved past her to go over to the pool tables instead, and just catches sight of him heading up and out of the bar. If the guy is going to ruin her day and part of her night, too, she's gonna return the favor. It's only fair, and besides, leaving without saying anything is just rude. Decided, she hurries up the stairs to follow him out, but it's apparently Alec's lucky day today, because the guy is long gone by the time she reaches the alley outside where they both usually stash their bikes.

She's muttering imprecations about what parts of his anatomy she's going to kick in when she sees him next when Max hears a soft laugh behind her and spins. There's another woman in the alley, a blonde in cargoes and a sweatshirt. Max feels like she vaguely recognizes her as one of the other workers at Jam Pony, and the woman is wearing biker gloves. While Max is still trying to recall any point at which she might have heard her name, she speaks. "That Alec is something, isn't he?"

The last thing she wants to do at this point is talk to part of his fan club about Alec, so Max answers curtly, "He's definitely _something_. Something _totally annoying_."

She turns to head back into Crash, but the woman's voice stops her a second time, asking wistfully, "Don't you just wish ..."

Considering how the women of Jam Pony generally act too stupid for words around the idiot, Max really does not want to hear one of them wax lyrical about Alec. Not on a good day, and certainly not today. So she cuts her off angrily with an emphatic "No!" before the woman can voice any specifics and viciously adds in an undertone she knows is below ordinary hearing, "I _wish_ I'd let his head explode when I had the chance."

The woman's laughter rings out again, but there's a strange mocking undertone to it now that makes Max turn back around, because it doesn't fit the situation. Before, Max would have described the woman as generically pretty, but now her whole face has turned into something that looks like it came out of Manticore's basement. It's covered in prominent dark veins and her eyes are weird and filled with malevolent glee. Max can't think of anything like that she's seen before and it makes her tense up warily, not knowing what abilities she may have or what she wants. "I think that'll work out splendidly. Wish Granted." She gives Max a sharp smile through distorted features and then between one eye blink and the next, she's gone. She didn't blur, she just completely disappeared.

Max looks around, straining her senses, trying to find any evidence she's not alone in the alley, but so far as she can tell, she is now. The whole thing is just too weird, and ultimately, it's getting late enough and she's still irked enough that she changes her mind about going back into Crash and just walks slowly over to her bike to head home instead. By the time she falls into bed, she's half convinced the whole thing was just some freaky weird daydream brought on by the crappy day that preceded it.

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With the early bedtime the night before, she's actually in to work reasonably close to on time the next day, and the sun being out puts her in a much better mood. It isn't until she's already completed her first few runs of the day she realizes anything's strange.

A minor part of her good mood had been the prospect of getting back at Alec for cutting out early just to go to Crash, naturally. Except she doesn't actually see Alec at Jam Pony at all that morning, which is weird, since he's usually in before her and often avoids actual work by hanging around the dispatch desk sucking up to Normal. Wondering how he somehow figured out she was pissed and a little confused as to why he'd even bother avoiding her, Max decides to ask Sketchy about him. Which is the point at which she realizes she hasn't seen Sketchy all morning, either. He's usually hiding out in between the lockers, hungover, but present. Except not today, apparently.

She catches Original Cindy at lunchtime and asks if something weird happened with Sketchy the night before that he isn't in today. Max doesn't bother to ask about Alec because her fellow transgenic does sometimes just skip out on work, and Normal lets him get away with it. The surprised expression Cindy gives her in return makes Max's stomach do a weird little flip. "Suga, I don't know what's up with you, but no body seen that fool since them government suits came lookin' after he was snapping photographs in the sewers."

Max has to actually think back to even remember when that was, because it was weeks ago and Cindy and Alec had taken care of it. "He was at Crash last night, though," Max insists.

"Boo, you trippin'! That was weeks back. You sure you feelin' aiight?" Cindy looks concerned and Max doesn't blame her.

"That doesn't make sense. Why would they have even bothered with Sketchy? You and Alec talked him out of believing there was anything in the sewers and destroyed his film!"

"True enough I took a hand to his camera, but he wouldn't listen to no sense 'bout running around like a fool. And who in the heck is Alec?"

Max blinks. "What are you playing at? The constant transgenic pain in my ass?"

Cindy looks blank and Max huffs in disbelief, though the weird feeling she's had all morning is starting to really gain momentum now. "Alec - the smart mouthed, thinks he's God's gift to women, constantly needs his ass bailed out of trouble messenger who works here and hangs out with us and refuses to go away?"

Cindy just shakes her head, looking worried. About Max.

She'd been avoiding it before now since she knew he'd just shove a package at her, but she even goes over to Normal and asks him if Alec's been in today. He rolls his eyes and waves vaguely towards one of the other messengers that Max thinks is named Aaron. Or maybe it's Adam.

Max has no idea what's going on here, so she does what she usually does these days when she needs information and doesn't know how to get it. She heads out to Logan's place.

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Of course, by Logan's place, she means Sandeman's old house where he's been holed up since White's people traced one of his hacks to his penthouse apartment. Except she runs into yet another weird hitch in her day there, because when she makes her way inside, none of Logan's stuff is anywhere to be found.

Looking around, she notices that none of the windows have been painted over the way Joshua had done before he'd left. There's also a thick layer of dust gathered across most of the surfaces in the house. The only place it's been disturbed is in a series of scuffed and retread footprints that lead through the central parts of the house. Following along, she finds them stopping frequently at the door to the basement.

Opening the door and cautiously descending, Max finally spots Joshua, hunched into a decrepit sofa with a novel in his hands. He isn't looking at her, but she's sure he's entirely aware she's there. Confused, but glad to see her friend, Max says, "Hey Big Fella."

Joshua looks up, but his face doesn't light up the way she's used to, and her pleasant feeling at finding him here safe is suddenly abated. Besides, where the heck is Logan, anyway?

She ignores the awkwardness of him looking less than pleased to see her and asks, "I thought you moved to Terminal City. Do you know where Logan is?"

He gives her a strange look, setting the book aside. "Logan has penthouse. Joshua doesn't go out, upstairs people won't understand. Why Max asking Joshua?"

"Sorry. I'm just having a really weird day. Do you need anything?" She offers at last, because something really strange is going on with her memory, but Joshua still can't exactly go shopping for himself. Better to check while she's here.

When he says he's good for a while, she says goodbye and he absently responds before going back to his book – though she catches him shooting glances up at her as she goes up the stairs. It's a weird thought, but Max gets the impression he's making sure she's leaving. She puts that aside for now, because the person she can always count on to help her clear up anything weird is Logan. Therefore she straddles her Ninja and heads out to the penthouse apartment where he shouldn't still be living.

As she makes her way quietly in and heads for Logan's office, she can already hear happy voices, which is weird enough. When she comes around the corner to see Logan and Asha sitting together, lovingly staring into each others eyes, laughing and _holding hands_ , her brain stutters to an appalled stop.

She clears her throat and they don't even have the decency to jump apart or look guilty or anything. In fact, they both look a little annoyed to see her before Logan sighs and turns to face her, saying wearily, "Max. Didn't think you'd be coming by again. Let me guess, some transgenic somewhere is in trouble?"

She ignores the sarcastic edge to his tone, because really, she doesn't know where else to go, even if he is being more of an ass than she can remember. Well, okay, more than he is most of the time anymore when he hasn't already gotten peevish at her over something. "Something weird is going on. I was at Crash last night with the gang and today Cindy tells me Sketchy's been missing for weeks and she doesn't know Alec."

He whispers something to Asha and gets up to walk over to his desk, the blonde heading off to the kitchen. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Max is irked to notice Asha doesn't look remotely concerned about leaving them alone. "Do you think you were drugged? Sketchy has been missing and presumed dead for weeks – I tracked it down on the hoverdrones for you, remember? The last bit of footage I managed to find showed him being escorted into a warehouse by White's right hand man. And this other person, Alec? Who is that supposed to be?"

"Okay. How can you not remember the guy who helped Manticore infect me with a deadly virus to kill you if we touched? I mean, clearly you've moved on," she can't help but snark, "but I'd think it'd be memorable."

"Max," Logan's eyes are confused behind his glasses, "the virus only lasted a couple of days."

"No, that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, if I'm not infected any more, why are you shacking up with blondie in there?" Max blurts out the last almost involuntarily, putting a hand on a cocked hip and trying to look more pissed than hurt.

"We broke up. Every time we kept making plans we had nothing to talk about or it got interrupted for work. You kept complaining the only thing I cared about was my work and you never wanted to make any time to help me with Eyes Only because you were too busy running around nannying the hundreds of dangerous transgenics you set loose on the population -"

Max interrupts, her eyes flashing and voice indignant, "They're not dangerous -"

Logan cuts back in with a tired sigh that bleeds condescension. "So you've said. Repeatedly. We fought about it for weeks. Finally we both admitted we really had nothing in common to base a relationship on."

"Okay, whatever. Just indulge me a sec. What happened to the virus?" Max is more than a little dismissive because she doesn't even know where to begin addressing any of the rest of what he's said. Maybe if she can figure out where everything else starts to be different for everyone else, she can figure out what's going on and make all of this go back to the way it should be. It's not a great plan, but it's all she's got.

"Lydecker gave me the name of a scientist and I pawned a few things to pay him off to whip up a cure before he skipped town. I'm not sure how you don't remember this."

"That's not what happened, though," Max begins, and it's at that point her perfect memory dumps the scene from the alley the night before to flash before her eyes. She pushes it away, though, because that doesn't make sense. Neither the idea of moving back in time nor, as much as she's complained and been angry at him, that Max would have actually prioritized the cure over anyone's life. Not even Alec's, not even back then. She _wouldn't_ , would she?

"Maybe I should see if Dr. Carr knows a psychiatrist you can talk to. Why don't you go and I'll just have him call you?" Logan suggests, looking at her with eyes that are both concerned and wary. Looking at her, in fact, as if she's some dangerous creature he doesn't know if he can trust not to attack. It hurts even more than all the rejection that's preceded it.

This is like some weird nightmare where everything is upside down for no reason. It's clear Logan can't help her and sadly, it doesn't even look like he still cares enough about her to seriously try to. The only clue she's got is that strange conversation with the woman in the alley, and the only place she can think to go from here is to look into what she said. She and Alec weren't the only ones there that night.

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Her head is a complete jumble as she drives back to Joshua's. She's crushed at the way Logan treated her, and she tries to remember back to when half her thoughts didn't revolve around wanting to be with him. The problem is, once she lets herself actually remember back that far, what he's said makes all too much sense. It had never been the right time for them for a year because neither of them had really prioritized being together until suddenly they couldn't. Without the virus, without the quid pro quo deal they had made, maybe there really wasn't anything holding them together beyond stubbornness.

Joshua is still in the same place she left him not all that long ago, but he obviously looks up from his book this time as she makes her way down the stairs, watching her descent. He doesn't look any more pleased to see her and Max takes the prudent route and decides not to ask. The scene at Logan's had been just about all the heartbreak she could take for today, she's not sure she can deal if something big has gone that wrong between her and Joshua, too.

"Max back."

She swallows and works up the nerve to ask the question she came here to ask. "Today has been really whack, Joshua, and I need you to help me figure out what happened. Will you help me?"

He pauses for a minute, setting his book aside completely, and eventually says, "Joshua help. What Max need help with?"

"Do you remember Alec?"

Joshua bears his teeth in a snarl. "Attacked Joshua. Attacked Max."

Max blinks in realization. She'd questioned whether she would have really chosen not to save Alec's life, but it hadn't occurred to her that their fight might have gone differently. If things really had been changed that night somehow, Alec might have run out of time. Or, it suddenly also occurs to her, they might have had to kill him to save themselves. After the misunderstanding about Ben, even knowing he'd done assassinations for Manticore, she hadn't even considered Alec not changing his mind about killing her that night until this moment.

Trying to figure out where things had truly diverged, she questions Joshua more specifically. "So we didn't take him with us to see the scientist who was making a cure for me?"

Joshua blinks in the same way everyone has been doing to her today when she confronts them with what she remembers. "Bomb, bomb in his head. Scientist wanted more cash, said he would only do one or the other, bomb or cure."

Max closes her eyes for a long moment. So they're back to that. Sure she'd said it, said it more than once, even said it directly to him when she was pissed off, but she wouldn't … right? "Joshua, tell me I didn't really say I'd rather have the cure."

Thankfully the big dog man looks surprised she's suggesting that. "No. Alec yelled, threatened scientist. Max yelled. Lots of yelling. Scientist said no, one or the other. Max said virus all Alec's fault anyway, not fair. Alec didn't argue, left. Max told scientist to wait, went after, but Alec fast, gone."

"He just ran off?" Max begins asking but then changes her mind and adds, "Could he have found somebody else to -"

Joshua is already shaking his head in negation before she finishes. "Too late. Argued too long, bomb went pop. Heard crash in alley nearby, found him." The dog man doesn't quite shrug, but he reports the events with no emotional investment whatsoever. She'd been irritated how much the two of them had bonded, especially after Alec had drawn Josh into his schemes and roomed with the big guy for a while, and now …

Max has to swallow hard. Alec's dead. She doesn't have to use her imagination to picture it in her mind's eye because she already knows exactly what that face looks like empty of life. At the time as it occurred in her memory, it had passed through her thoughts that if she let Alec die, in some obscure sense she was failing his twin all over again. Now, as much as Alec has aggravated and inconvenienced her all these months of knowing him, losing him for the sake of himself is so much worse. She manages to thank Joshua for his help before leaving abruptly. He's clearly curious about what's going on with her and why some guy he barely knew is important, but it's not in her to try and explain.

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The problem, Max feels, is that even though she can now connect things in her head, they still don't make a bit of sense. All the crazy things Manticore came up with, she's pretty sure if they had managed time travel she and her unit would have never managed to escape. So she doesn't know what this can be. If it didn't feel so real, she'd be tempted to actually wonder if Logan's snarky suggestion she'd been drugged or was having some whacked out hallucination wasn't true.

She heads out to Terminal City the next day, a little afraid of what she's going to find there, but everything seems actually more or less the same at first. Except Mole, Dix, and Biggs are going over some kind of plans as she arrives. Biggs who died a couple of days ago, gruesomely. Yet here he is perfectly fine, although it wouldn't be fair to say he's unchanged, as he greets her with a blank expression and a curt recitation of her designation, "452."

It's just as well he goes back to looking at the plans before she has a chance to respond because she's not quite sure what she would say. Ever since he showed up a week and a half ago, Biggs had been Alec's equally happy-go-lucky shadow. The rigidly controlled transgenic she's looking at now might as well be one of the clones for all he has in common with the guy Max had been getting to know. She'd actually suspect he was one if she hadn't heard a discussion between him and Alec about how his clone died in the tank back at Manticore before the escape. She wonders if he's like this just because he never met back up with Alec, or because he knows his friend is dead and she could have stopped it. On second thought, she really doesn't want to know.

She tries to get involved in what they're planning, but while they aren't exactly rude, the terseness of their replies makes it clear she's not truly welcome to join the discussion. It looks like a simple supplies run, and she knows they're all competent so she backs off. It's unusual for her, but these are people she was at least willingly collaborating with last she can remember. Their hostility and the uncertainty of what's changed with the whole situation is disconcerting enough to leave her unusually willing to retreat.

Looking around the rest of the building the inhabitants of Terminal City have been using as a headquarters, there are familiar faces around, but there's also a lack of certain ones she expects to see. And there are notably fewer than she expects as she further explores the parts of TC she knows. It finally dawns on her some time later that the missing ones are mostly those she and Alec went on rescue missions to retrieve. She doesn't believe she wouldn't have done those anyway, so she asks about a few missing faces when she returns from exploring to see that the group has finally stepped away from their planning.

Biggs tells her that a great deal of them have gone up to Canada. There's no central leadership in TC and no real planning or general sharing of resources. Only Max had been willing to try and step forward and bring anything together and most of them just weren't willing to follow an '09er. Except she knew they had been, at least, they had been _before_. When she had Alec and Joshua there on her side. She hadn't figured it mattered all that much.

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Max tries to settle back into her regular routine, but it's surprisingly hard to do. She can still involve herself in the business of TC, although she has to spend a lot more time bulling her way into things and everything is just so, so annoyingly military when it's organized at all.

Then there's Logan. She'd thought if the virus wasn't there between them that, well, she realizes now she'd imagined some kind of dream-world fairy tale that had little to do with reality. He only calls her up when he wants her to do some kind of a job, and it's not just that he's involved with Asha now, because thinking back, that's always been more true than not. The difference between their relationship now and when they first met is she isn't suffering under any illusions she's actually going to get any help from him on finding her siblings in return for being his one woman army against whatever bad guy pinged his radar this week.

If all that is the indirect result of Alec's absence, which she doesn't want to admit, she wants to admit even less to the direct results. As annoying as she found him being always there in her periphery, the sudden lack of his intruding presence is unpleasantly disconcerting. There's no one to argue with, no one to joke deprecatingly about or with, no one who won't be offended if she wants to playfully smack them around a bit. No one to share her concerns about White and the increasingly anti-transgenic news broadcasts with, all understood without speaking a word. Cindy tries, but - Max actually _really_ misses the idiot, and not just because she feels guilty. Who'd have thought?

On top of being annoyed at herself for that, she's also annoyed there's nothing she can really do about it. Max isn't exactly the kind of person who just sits back and accepts things she doesn't like. Mysterious transgenics who appear and disappear at will and can apparently travel in time, or at least do a reasonable approximation of it, well, how do you fight that? Either someone outside of her head will wake her up back in reality or she's stuck here with things as they stand. She's not sure enough of anything to try and harm herself to wake up. Sure, they say you never die in a dream, but she's not willing to test it. This just feels too real. Not to mention other superstitions insist if you do die in your dreams you'll die for real, anyway.

She's still having to work to not constantly resent all the things that have changed which she can't do anything about when she's approached by a redheaded woman she doesn't know in between deliveries one day. The conversation that follows is strange, to say the least.

"Hey, uh, hi! Are you Max Guevara?"

Max turns towards the unfamiliar voice, keeping her hands gripped around the handlebars of her bike. The woman doesn't seem threatening at all, if anything she actually seems a little nervous, but Max knows only too well how deceptive looks can be. Strangers confronting her in out of the way blind alleys by name just doesn't seem likely to lead anywhere good. "Who wants to know?"

"Oh! Right, I'm, uh, I'm Willow. Willow Rosenberg. And I think that maybe you might need my help?"

For her part, Max just raises her eyebrows in skepticism. She's definitely not the kind of girl who generally needs anybody's help. She certainly can't figure why she'd need the help of someone uncertain enough to turn a statement into a question rather than the other way around.

With an almost visible effort, the woman straightens both her posture and expression to look Max directly in the eye. For the first time showing real conviction, she says, "I have good reason to think you made a wish you want to take back."

Internally, Max is shocked, but doesn't let her expression give anything away. There's no reason to believe she can trust this Willow to be on the up and up even if the whole wishes suddenly coming true thing actually made sense. Which it still doesn't, even if Max doesn't have a better explanation. Her reply to Willow is challenging and blatantly sarcastic, "Oh, of course. Wishes coming true just like magic, that happens."

"Exactly like magic," Willow agrees before raising her hands in front of her palms facing one another. Between them, gradually a ball of glowing bluish light begins to form and the ends of Willow's hair begin to float unnaturally around her head. It's completely crazy, but crazy fits all too well with the past couple weeks Max has been having. "I would know," she adds, smiling.

Of course, Max doesn't believe in magic and remains paranoid it might be some kind of trick, because she wasn't raised to just trust random people approaching her on the street with wild stories. Yet when Willow insists she really might be able to reverse what's happened, the potential it could actually be true is enough to have Max stretch her trust a whole lot further than she'd otherwise be inclined to. It's not like she's got any other options. Of course she insists on asking how Willow could possibly know what's going on before she gives up anything – which segues into an explanation over coffee about magical energies and vengeance demons.

When Max complains that having metaphorical demons like White after her are bad enough, Willow suggests with all seriousness it might actually not be a coincidence the vengeance demon focused on her. The spiel she gives after that about Champions and The Powers That Be has Max outwardly scoffing, but internally wondering. It's not like her life hasn't featured a couple moments of prayers seemingly answered out of nowhere.

"It's like this," Willow states with assurance and complete seriousness, "there's a sort of natural balance or order to the world, right? Well, evil's always trying to upset it and take over and good's always fighting back. The problem is if things swing too far out of whack in favor of either good or evil, the rules kind of fly out the window. There's a whole bunch of stuff, magic stuff, other stuff, not important what exactly it all was that caused it – the point is, things aren't exactly balanced right now."

She pauses to make sure Max is still following before taking a breath and continuing on, "Now you, you're rockin' this whole 'savior of the transgenics' Champion vibe. Prophecies, extra special special powers, the whole wheel o' cheese. Which is why I think maybe somebody's cheating a little bit. So if you tell me a little more about the wish, I can look and see if I can't set you right. 'Kay?"

Max blinks, taken a little aback at the large slew of information. Hesitantly, she admits, "I was having a bad day and, well, this friend of mine gets on my nerves a lot. And I said, well, I said I wished that I'd let him die when I hadn't before. Next thing I know everyone's telling me I did and a bunch of things had turned to crap."

Max expects Willow to be taken aback when she admits she wished one of her friends dead, but Willow doesn't even blink an eye. She just asks Max for a description of the human face of the demon that did the curse, although she does so circuitously, asking if Max can describe any relatively new acquaintances who overheard her making the wish that changed things before Max admits she saw the creature's face go weird.

Willow perkily promises to look into it and sort the whole issue out, dismissively turning down Max's offer to help. Okay, so it was a little more forceful than an offer, but this is her life, right? Of course, it's pretty hard to argue your case to someone who can just appear and disappear at will to end an argument.

* * *

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* * *

Max waits impatiently to hear back from Willow for a couple of days with nothing to speak of happening. Like everything else since that night at Crash, Max starts to doubt the reality of the conversation even having taken place. Manticore got all the X5s' brain chemistry wrong in the first place with the serotonin deficiency. Maybe that's not the only thing they screwed up with her. One of Max's unspoken nightmares has always been that at some point her frankensteined body would betray her in some way the scientists who mixed up her cocktail never bothered to look ahead enough to predict. It's not without precedent, after all, since she's pretty sure her heats were unintentional, and _something_ drove Ben crazy.

Then, between one day and the next, suddenly everything resets. She walks into Jam Pony mid-afternoon to see Sketchy and Alec chatting by the former's locker, and she stops cold. They notice her staring, and when that prompts her to rush over, Alec recoils, clearly expecting to be hit.

"Woah, Max, you look spooked. What's up?" Sketchy asks.

Even if she could explain, she wouldn't. She throws her arms around Sketchy and gives him a big hug before turning and doing the exact same to Alec. Of course, Alec is Alec and can't let the opportunity to say something stupid go by, so as she pulls away, he says, "I always knew you couldn't resist wanting to grope me forever, Maxie." He even accompanies the lame innuendo with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

Max contemplates for only a moment, before thinking, 'why not?' Alec's bracing to be hit over the back of the head, so he's completely taken by surprise when she slides her hands into his hair to pull his lips down to her level. His mouth is unresponsive under hers for a stretch of far too many moments before she can almost hear him think, ' _to hell with it'_. His arms come around her again, and Max revels in the feeling of him warm, solid, and very much alive pressed up against her. After his lips part under hers and he commits to really kissing her back, she doesn't actually think much of anything coherent for a while.

Eventually, a little breathless, she steps away, smiling, satisfied with Alec's poleaxed expression. As she turns on her heel to walk off, she throws back over her shoulder, "You're such an idiot."

As she saunters over to pick up a package from Normal at the desk, she can hear Sketchy whispering, "Dude, what was that all about?"

She listens but there's no response, and a quick covert glance that way confirms it. She's actually left Alec speechless. Chuckling to herself, she sets out to get back to her imperfect little life restored to just the way it's supposed to be. Well, okay, she might be thinking about making _a few_ changes.


End file.
